There
are a number of ways the Iraq situation can play out over the years
to come. It is possible, but unlikely, that the neoconzis--who deny
they want this--will be able to turn Iraq into a Middle Eastern version
of the U.S. that will forevermore "love" the U.S. and be our
ersatz colony. Get ready to see the Girls of Baghdad University posing
nude in an American men's magazine if things go this way.

Then again, there are other ways this may play out, and we may imagine
a few possibilities given what we know of history, the world, and human
nature.

Remember
the 1959 comedy film The Mouse that Roared? In that film, the fictional
tiny nation of Grand Fenwick declared war on the U.S. so the Grand Fenwickians
could quickly surrender and thereafter receive millions of dollars in
U.S. foreign aid. Not a bad plan, really, considering how the U.S. does
things.

Remember the truism that a supposedly weak tree that
bends when a hurricane blows, often survives by bending, while a tree
that is supposedly strong and doesn't bend, is destroyed? Are many Iraqis
just bending until the American hurricane passes over?

Remember the Minutemen of American history who refused to fight a conventional
war against the much stronger British and who, instead, wore civilian
clothes and who then melted away into the population after guerilla
attacks on the Brits? Will we see more and more of this type of activity
in Iraq?

Remember the street saying that if rape is inevitable, you might as
well relax and enjoy it? Are the Iraqis giving flowers to American troops,
just relaxing and enjoying the inevitable?

Remember the religious belief held by many Muslims that they will go
to heaven if they are killed while fighting the infidels? More human
bombs coming?

Remember the old saw: "He who fights and runs away,
lives to fight another day"? Where, exactly, did all those Iraqi
soldiers go?

So,
what do the above snippets have to do with Iraq? Maybe nothing. Then
again, maybe everything, and maybe all at the same time even if some
may seem contradictory or mutually exclusive. In a nation of about 24
million people, there are bound to be lots of differing motives. It
may be that many Iraqis, but not all, may have quickly adapted to the
sure knowledge that they would lose the war and are therefore trying
to turn the short term loss into a long term win. As I've written before,
Iraq is a 98 pound weakling of a nation compared to the U.S., but even
so, doesn't it seem that the war has been going a little too easy? Like
a hot knife through butter? Like shooting sitting ducks? Like an adult
professional baseball team taking on a grade school girl's softball
team? At last count, we had about 7,000 Grand Fenwickians, er, Iraqi
soldiers who had surrendered and who we are now taking care of. They
mostly chose not to fight and surrendered as soon as they found someone
to surrender to. While the neoconzis are praising the might of the U.S.
military, it may be that the rest of the world sees it as an unfair
fight, and will eventually look at the U.S. the way we look at a disgusting
bully beating a defenseless baby.

The neoconzi propaganda machine is saturating the U.S.
with scenes of Iraqis coming out and welcoming the Americans. Two weeks
ago, many of these people would have been praising Saddam. Have these
people really switched loyalties? Probably not very many, not genuinely.
Most of our new best friends are probably just being pragmatic and doing
the old shuck and jive to fool the man--the U.S.--and are doing what
is necessary to survive or to gain business and social advantages they
believe they may get by siding with the victor. If Iraq were suddenly
invaded by a stronger force than the U.S., most of these same people
now praising America would probably change sides in an eye blink. Also,
most of those people seen around the now famous toppled statue of Saddam
Hussein in Baghdad, were actually Shia Muslims who have always hated
Saddam, who is a Sunny Muslim and who is more secular than religious.

The
Shi'ite hatred of Saddam stems primarily from the fact that he tried
to discourage the Shi'ites from practicing their version of Islam. With
Saddam gone, the Shi'ites will once again be able to practice their
religion. Should the neoconzis rejoice about this? What many Americans
may not really understand is that some of the most zealous and extreme
Islamic nations are overwhelmingly Shi'ite. Iran, for example, is primarily
a Shi'ite nation. So, maybe what the neoconzis have actually done with
this invasion of Iraq is free the extremists, who had been kept from
extremist activities by the very government we just destroyed, to be
more extreme. Ironically, Saddam Hussein's government was pretty secular
and Western thinking. What may eventually replace Saddam's government,
once the Americans are gone, may be government by Ayatollahs. Just as
we see in Iran.

Also, despite all the neoconzis propaganda about the
"dictatorship" of Saddam, the reality is that without such
a heavy hand, the people of Iraq would have been less Western and would
have relied more on their religion for their laws and government. In
the purest forms of Islam, there is no separation between religion and
government. None. Saddam forced such a separation. Saddam is now gone.
Remember also, Islam is not organized in a pyramid structure such as
the Catholic Church. There is no Pope or Pope equivalent in Islam who
we can control or get rid of if we don't like him.

In
Islam, leaders bubble up from the people--all over the place. The leaders
may have titles, but they are honorifics and these leaders are no more
equal than any other believers. The leaders are followed only if others
respect them, and they become more powerful than other leaders only
if more people choose to follow them than some other leaders. If a religious
leader loses respect, he is not followed and may be ignored or killed
if he goes against the popular will or is seen as a tool of a non-Islamic
power. Most religious leaders lead spartan lives and have little use
for wealth. The point here is that the system is inherently decentralized,
not built on greed, and is difficult to bend to the will of the U.S.
which usually tries to bend others with promises of money.

So what have we accomplished by attacking and invading
Iraq?
We've caused the deaths of many people.
We've angered the Muslim world.
We've angered the Arab world.
We've become known as a bully around the world.
We've alienated many European nations.
We have destroyed a secular and somewhat Western oriented government.
By contrast, the things that really matter for a sea change in the region
haven't been changed and these things may have a cumulative effect that
may come back to haunt us.
The religion hasn't changed.
The genes of the people haven't changed.
The land hasn't changed.
The Arab culture hasn't changed.
There are still about 24 million Iraqis.
Iraq is still surrounded by other Arab nations.

Those
who may argue that we can simply Americanize Iraq as we did with Germany
and Japan after WWII don't understand the dynamics of the Middle East
and Islam. Germany and Japan were lone nations. Iraq is part of a pan-Arab
culture. When Arabs refer to the Arab nation, they're not usually referring
to one nation, but to all Arab nations. The present national boundaries
between Arab nations are relatively new and artificial. There's not
much difference between an Arab from Iraq and an Arab from Palestine
or Jordan or Saudi Arabia or any other political state. When non-Iraqi
Arabs see American soldiers in Baghdad, they don't see this as the way
Americans see it. Baghdad is not a foreign capital to Arabs, no matter
where these Arabs live. Baghdad is one of the capitals of the Arab nation.

Something else to think about as we sort through the
propaganda is that one of the stated goals of the neoconzis was to bring
freedom to the people of Iraq. True freedom means personal freedom.
Personal freedom means being able to do what you want. Many of the people
of Iraq are now demonstrating they appreciate this true freedom and
are looting and taking what they want. They appreciate being freed from
the lack of freedom imposed on them by Saddam. On our TV newscasts,
we see smiling Iraqis giving thumbs up signs as they drive away with
truck loads of looted merchandise. It's almost as though they're saying,
"We love President Bush!

Thank
you for the free furniture and TV sets, Mr. Bush. That despot Saddam
Hussein wouldn't let us have them for free." Complete freedom can't
help but mean chaos as each individual does what he or she wants with
no constraints. That's what the people in Iraq have now. Complete freedom.
It is the freedom experienced by the strong over the weak. In a sense,
the looters are doing the same thing as the neoconzis had the American
government do. They are doing just what they want with no fear that
they will be held accountable. Eventually, the chaos in Iraq will be
sorted out and some order will be imposed on the people of Iraq once
again. With order comes lack of freedom. The U.S. wants to impose the
American version of freedom on the Iraqis. Muslims want the Islamic
version of freedom. They aren't the same thing.

And,
those war mongering neoconzis in this country who say that this invasion,
that they pushed, will stop terrorism, not cause more, don't understand
the new age we have just barged into. The neoconzis also don't understand
that most Americans who are opposed to this invasion probably wouldn't
protest a truly just war. It isn't about fearing that we did something
right, and as a result that we will then be targeted by bad people,
that motivates many of those who didn't want this war. It's about fearing
that we did something wrong, and that we will be targeted by good people
or even by some sort of cosmic karma seeking to balance the scales of
good and evil. It is about doing evil and having evil returned to us.

With
the invasion of Iraq begins the age-old hatred of America and Americans
to be talked about a hundred years from now. Now is the time of the
beginning of the blood feud. With this unnecessary war and invasion
of the Arab nation, the neoconzis have been able to make the U.S. as
hated by Arabs and Muslims as Israel is hated by them, and for the same
reasons. This gives an advantage to Israel which can now, more than
ever, seek aid from the U.S. because of our "mutual enemies"--all
Muslims and all Arabs. We have entered a fight that was really not our
business and not in our best interests. Now, more Americans than ever
will die for Israel and wrongly think, as they lie dying, that they
are dying for America.

We have entered the age of blood vengeance.

# # #

TWO ICONOCLASTIC BOOKS BY H. MILLARD!
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